The Red Terrors is a true story about high school football players, their coaches and their impact on a community looking for something good to happen in the historic coastal city of Brunswick, Georgia, in 1964. Led by a determined group of fourteen players, this inspired squad battled teams that dressed out three times its number in a season where the outcome of most games was decided on a late fourth-quarter rally.
Readers are allowed a glimpse into the lives of the boys that made up the Red Terrors football team, and insight into what life was about in a small Southern community during the mid-1960s. The Cold War, America's early military presence in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and other national and global issues that captured the headlines of the day are recalled in The Red Terrors in ways that place the reader squarely between each line.
Unexpected twists occur during the football season, beginning with the two-a-day fall practices in the heat of August, but the joy is in the journey the team takes in its quest for the school's first state football championship, and how the small band of players could touch the hearts and souls of an entire community.
The Red Terrors is a solid look at what occurred both on and off the football field, but it is also a story that even those who do not care for the game will find intriguing.
The author spent six months researching material for this story by extracting accounts of the games played that season by The Red Terrors from archived newspaper articles, and through interviews with most of the players on the team. What we are left with is the story of a high school team that rose above adversity and, through dedication and loyalty to each other, became heroes for a community that was in need of heroes.